The National Science Foundation (NSF) is conducting a pilot of a new portal in the FastLane system that allows startups and small businesses to pitch their project concepts and receive responses within three weeks, FedScoop reported Monday. Kelly Monterroso, a communications specialist at NSF, said the Project Pitch platform allows NSF to streamline the scientific research grant application process for startups and entrepreneurs.

“So we know that if we invite them to submit a proposal, because they’ve gone through the project pitch process, we know who they are, we can hold webinars just for them, we can just really help them through their registration, all the paperwork that they need to submit. So it’s a way that we can help them through our process,” said Monterroso.

NSF came up with the Project Pitch platform using Service Cloud Lightning Edition, a software-as-a-service offering from Salesforce.

“The lack of upfront cost is really important because this is a pilot. It’s still a pilot, honestly. We’re still changing things,” Ben Schrag, Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer program director at NSF, said of Project Pitch.

Maj. Gen. Maria Barrett, commander of Network Enterprise Technology Command, said the U.S. Army will launch a capability to allow employees teleworking during the pandemic and other remote users to access classified and sensitive information in the next 30 days, C4ISRNET reported Monday.

Barrett told the publication the service plans to onboard the first 500 users in the next four weeks and increase that number to up to 2,000 users. She said NETCOM is coordinating with the Army CIO/G-6 and 7th Signal Command to collect “user requests for prioritization” and that “majority” of the devices that will be used to access data will be virtual desktops with no data stored on end-user devices.

“Based on location, the service will likely work better for [contiguous United States] users; it is our intention to test performance with [outside contiguous United States] users before issuing this as an offering [outside the contiguous United States],” Barrett said.

The Department of Energy (DoE) is investing more than $33 million in government-industry-academia partnership projects that aim to develop and later commercialize new energy technologies. National laboratories have partnered with industry and academic entities to pursue these 82 projects financed by DOE's Technology Commercialization Fund, the department said June 11.

“The Technology Commercialization Fund is a critical component of the department’s commercialization strategy, meant to provide a bridge that connects America’s innovators to the research and expertise of our world-class National Lab system," said Dan Brouillette, secretary of Energy.

Project topics include high-performance magnets, wide bandgap power devices, artificial intelligence-supported manufacturing and dual-fuel technology. General Electric Renewable Energy, Boeing, TerraPower, Kairos Power and the University of Pennsylvania are among the industrial and academic partners for the projects.

BlackBerry Limited has launched BlackBerry AtHoc Managed Service to enable organizations to establish and maintain a crisis communications capability, the company reported on Monday. 

"Keeping employees safe and business operating, particularly during this time, requires accurate and responsive critical communication," said Christoph Erdmann, senior vice president of Secure Communications at BlackBerry. "We are incredibly pleased to offer the same services proven by some of the most demanding environments including 12 FedRAMP ATOs… to organizations of every size."

BlackBerry’s solution will enable organizations to reassess the effectiveness of crisis communication programs to protect people and business operations. In addition, the offering will help manage business disruptions, forced remote work and return to work for ongoing critical communications. 

BlackBerry AtHoc Managed Service will provide customers with 24×7 crisis management communications, alerts and support, including the option to send alerts on the customer's behalf, so that they can focus on their essential day-to-day business. 

Customers will also be able to exchange notifications with other government agencies and commercial enterprises using the BlackBerry AtHoc platform. The network effect will increase the benefit of the critical communications of all the participating organizations.

"By making BlackBerry AtHoc available as a managed service, BlackBerry has dramatically expanded the number of organizations that can now use this capability," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst, Enderle Group. "The introduction of BlackBerry AtHoc Managed Service is a welcome addition to make it affordable and easy for any organization to keep their employees safe."

About BlackBerry

BlackBerry (NYSE: BB; TSX: BB) provides intelligent security software and services to enterprises and governments around the world. The company secures more than 500M endpoints including 150M cars on the road today.  Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company leverages AI and machine learning to deliver innovative solutions in the areas of cybersecurity, safety and data privacy solutions, and is a leader in the areas of endpoint security management, encryption, and embedded systems.  BlackBerry's vision is clear – to secure a connected future you can trust.